


Faults

by EphemeralSonder (MermaidMayonnaise)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fiction, i bash you on the head with a life lesson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-15
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23067979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MermaidMayonnaise/pseuds/EphemeralSonder
Comments: 1





	Faults

An artist standing on a dais is working feverishly on a magnificent rainbow rising seemingly by itself on an alley’s cracked and filthy wall. As the artist’s brush gracefully undulates, the vibrant colors splatter onto the wall, revealing their exquisite hues, slowly emerging out of the wall’s grime. Each shade blends smoothly into the next as the artist stops to admire her work. She breaks herself out of her daze, and steps back. She then eyes the work with her trained artist’s eye, and shakes her head disapprovingly at the faults that only she can see; the oozing red, just around the corner, the slowly adhering green, duller than the rest, and the neglected purple, slowly dripping, dripping down the wall. The artist clucks her tongue at the faults, like it was _their_ fault they were ruining the beauty of her work, shakes her head once more, and gets back to work, painting furiously but yet with the utmost care.

Passersby marvel at the beauty of the rainbow, widely contrasting against the wall’s grubby hue, but when they mention this to the artist, she just shakes her head. “It’s pretty, I admit, but when I look at it, I just see faults. It just reminds me that I still have a long way to go,” she says sadly. Most of the people agree, and the artist becomes more and more dejected. After a while, a flushed little girl, no more than five, runs up to her.

Stretching to her full height of forty-three inches, the girl inquires in a high pitched voice, “Excuse me, did you draw this rainbow? It’s so pretty!”

The artist, smiling sadly at the girl, replies, “Yes, but I have a long way to go until it’s good. See this red, how it keeps running down? And the yellow, with the bubbles that simply don’t pop?”

The girl looks confused for a couple of seconds as she peers over the artist at the wall. “I kind of see them, but I didn’t notice until you pointed them out. From a few steps away it looks absolutely _perfect_.” She pulls on the artist's paint-splattered hand. “Come see!”

The artist steps back and finally looks at her picture as a whole. Suddenly, she couldn’t see all those little faults that had bothered her so much anymore. “Wow,” the artist says breathlessly, “that’s amazing.”

“See? I told you so!” The little girl squeaks, clearly proud.

The artist, visibly snapping out of her reverie, takes a few seconds to get her bearings. She says, “Why, you’re a very smart girl. Thanks so much for your opinion!”

The little girl beams and the artist clearly sees that she had just made the girl’s day. The little girl pipes a little “Bye!” before running off to her waiting parents shouting, “Mommy! Daddy! That woman called me smart!”

The artist, overhearing, waves to the parents, and turns back to her work. This time, all the faults came together to form something else. But this time, the artist isn’t disappointed. “You’re right,” she whispers, half to the girl and half to herself, “you just have to see the big picture.”

And there it was, standing proud. Her very own rainbow.


End file.
